Take Your Stripes and Shove It

As you all know, I review video games. Which means I also play a lot of video games. Most of the time I can only spend about 10 on any given game because my column comes out weekly, so delving into any one game just takes away time from another. As a reward for all my hard work (yeah, I can feel the pity from here), I let myself truly enjoy the hell out of one game.

This means I try my damnedest in my free time to see the game through to the finish. I always make sure it's a great game, whether it's Oblivion or The Godfather, or a couple seasons of NCAA Football or perhaps unlocking everything I can in Skate. Right now, that game is Gears of War 2.

Besides the comically high level of gore and the fun of sawing someone in half, I have a more community-based reason for loving this game. You see, I got friends back in Kentucky and Ohio (and even this guy I know in Florida, but calling him a friend would do a disservice to the word 'friend'). Sorry, Matt, it's true. Anyway, it's great because all of these friends play online with me, so once or twice a week I get to catch up with Luke, Sean, Andy, Sarah, Matt (OK, fine, I'll acknowledge him), Jeremy and others. Yeah, you read that right ... we even have a chick playing with us. It's awesome. She curses loudly and loves tossing frags into hordes of combatants. It's great stuff.

GOW2 has a ranking system to gauge how well you play online, and they give you stripes and stars based on your performance. Me and some of the guys are currently stuck on one stripe, while tons of others online have 70 gold bars and stars and look more like 5-star generals than your average gamer. I earned my second stripe last week, but then had a bad run and lost it 15 minutes later. It sucked. I was pissed.

Now, I learn that there is no method to the ranking system. Matt, who is easily the Sling Blade level of gamer in our group, has earned his second stripe and hasn't lost it despite him sucking massively on a consistent basis. So I say screw the stripes. I'm not worried. I know I got skills, and I'm gonna take Matt's second stripe and cram it down his piehole. Oh, and that awesome photo is me blowing his head off with a sniper round. Thanks for the proof, Sean.